


Green and Wanted

by Forestwater



Series: Camp Camp Secret Santa [1]
Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Don't think too hard about it, Fluff, Gen, a little bit of Dadvid, found family nonsense, or somehow david has max
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-29 15:23:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16746532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Forestwater/pseuds/Forestwater
Summary: Gwen visits David and Max to help with the holidays, and things don't entirely go as planned. (They do, however, go much better than Gwen had initially expected.)My camp camp secret santa entry for 2017, posted almost a year after it was written.





	Green and Wanted

**Author's Note:**

> Continuing my fic migration from tumblr to ao3. Apologies if you were hoping for new fic and are instead stuck with this, but it's been a long time coming.

“For Christ’s sake, let me g –”

“Your scarf is dragging, Max! Just – stop – for a second –”

“It’s a thousand degrees!”

Gwen glanced up from her phone, abandoning the “I’m here” text she’d been about to send David. She’d been worrying about how she would be able to find them in the crush of people thronging the train station, but of course she should’ve realized they wouldn’t be hard to find. “Guys?” she called, pocketing her phone and tightening her grip on her bag.

David’s head popped up over the crowd – a second’s flash of a robin’s egg blue pompom bouncing into the air – and then he was pushing through the throng, nearly tripping over his own feet and several others’ before stumbling to a halt in front of her. “Gwen!” he cried, flinging one arm around her with the other awkwardly held out behind him. “It’s so good to see you! Max!” His body twisted in the direction of his outstretched arm, gently tugging Max forward. “Look who’s here!”

Max rolled his eyes, shuffling his feet but letting himself be drawn into the hug by David’s mittened hand in his. “So? She’s here all the time.”

David had cajoled his young houseguest into full winter gear this month, Gwen noticed; last time it had been a constant battle of shed clothing and loud arguments. And judging by the way Max’s scarf was only loosely draped around his neck, both ends soaked and filthy and threatening to trip him with every step, it was a fight David had only barely won. She resisted the urge to kneel down as he approached, knowing it’d only make his mood more sour. “Nice to see you too, asshole.”

David frowned, but Max’s eyes flicked up to meet hers, and she could’ve sworn she saw the ghost of a smirk cross his face for a second.

“Come on, guys, it’s Christmas! We’ve never all been together for Christmas like this! Isn’t that special?”

“Maybe if you stopped shoving holiday bullshit down our throats,” Max muttered, yanking his hand free and shoving them in his coat pockets.

She glanced over at David, watching the sunshine in his face fight with worry and plain sullen disappointment. They’d talked about Max’s increasing bad mood as Christmas drew closer, over text and phone and Facebook and email (and even the occasional concerned snap; she was pretty sure he would’ve sent his fears of being a good guardian by carrier pigeon if he’d known how). She was of the opinion that Max was a kid and kids were assholes, but David was convinced there was something deeper going on.

Judging by the frustration that drew his eyebrows together and thinned his lips, he hadn’t hunted down that “something” just yet.

Gwen bumped his shoulder with her own. “You okay, David?”

He started, shaking his head with a small laugh. The lines on his face smoothed away and he fixed her with a bright smile. “Of course I am!” he replied, picking up her bag and slinging it over his shoulder. “I have my favorite people in the world with me –”

“I can take that, you don’t have to carry it –”

“– and it’s the best time of the year! Besides summer, of course!” Ignoring her halfhearted protests, he stared Max down until the boy sighed and accepted his proffered hand – then extended the stare to Gwen, who was familiar enough with this routine to snag Max’s other hand – then led the way off the train platform. “I’ve never been happier!”

“Has he been like this the whole time?” she asked Max quietly, letting David bounce along without noticing they weren’t listening.

Max glared up at her from under his hat; bright red with a white puffball on the end, it perched on his curls like a big floppy pancake. (She wondered idly if he or David had made it, and which of them was the better knitter by now.) “What the fuck do  _you_ think?”

Gwen was a little proud of herself for not taking his irritation personally. Besides, David’s behavior was a bit more worrying at the moment. He’d always been a bit manic, but … “How’re you holding up?”

He shrugged as well as he could, considering both his hands were captive. “Fine, I guess? I don’t –”

“Okay, gang!” David cut in, “let me go get the car so you don’t have to walk through the snow! Wait right here! Don’t go anywhere!”

They both watched him bound away, nearly slipping on a section of poorly-salted ice before catching himself and running to the parking lot. Finally Max said, “Listen, I get this ‘how are you feeling?’ shit from  _him_ all the time. Can you give it a rest for a couple days?”

“I meant, how are you doing with him? I … know he can be kinda hard to take.”

Max glanced over at her, face scrunching in surprise. “Oh,” he said. “I mean, he’s okay I guess. Could be worse.”

Biting the inside of her cheek, Gwen looked out at the traffic, feigning disinterest. “I can’t believe you haven’t killed him yet over this ‘festive cheer’ stuff.  _I_ would’ve.”

“No, seriously, he’s fine.” He scuffed at the salty sidewalk. “It’s nice not being the only house without Christmas lights. At least he gives a shit.”

His voice was quiet, shy but also prickly with defensiveness, and she decided she’d pushed hard enough. “Can’t wait to get to see the place. Knowing him, you’d probably notice it from orbit.”

Max snorted. “We got letters from the neighbors threatening to call the cops because they couldn’t sleep. Took all weekend to convince David to take some of the lights down.” He smirked up at her with the see-what-I’m-dealing-with? expression that’d become their primary mode of communication over the past few months, and the tension between them dissolved.

As David’s beaten-up car rumbled to a stop in front of them – spraying everyone waiting at the curb with slush – she ducked into the front seat with a mixture of satisfaction and disappointment.

Satisfaction, because she might not have used her degree much since graduation, but she could still pull a mean reverse psychology when she had to.

Disappointment, because it seemed like maybe there  _was_  something deeper than general kid dickishness going on here.

And Max of all kids didn’t need another reason to wake up scowling.

* * *

“So how should we start?” David clapped his hands between his knees and leaned forward so far he nearly tipped his chair over. His leg was bouncing hard enough to make the furniture shake. “We need a tree, or we can bake cookies – ooh, or we can make a big Christmas dinner – or go to the movies – what about ice skating?” Sitting up straight, he covered his mouth with both hands. “There’s so much to do! I’m so excited!”

Max groaned, but didn’t look up from his phone. Gwen was inclined to agree – after the train ride up here she wanted nothing more than to collapse on the couch and not move for at least five hours – but she saw the way David’s hair was sticking up a bit too much (a symptom of combing his fingers through it obsessively) and the slightly manic glint to his smile. After years of working together in unnecessarily stressful situations, too many of them involving grenades, she was pretty familiar with his “I’m hanging onto the end of my rope with my fingernails” look. So she scraped a bit more enthusiasm from deep in her stomach and said, “I mean, this place looks basically perfect, but it’s a little weird without a tree. And it’d be nice to get outside while it’s still light.”

Max’s head shot up, a look resembling betrayal flashing across his face. Then he shrugged and glanced back down at his phone. “Whatever. I mean it’s not like we don’t have enough decorations.”

“But a tree is the most important one!” David sprang to his feet, taking Gwen’s hands and tugging her up as well. “What a great idea, Gwen!”

“Why don’t you guys already have a tree?” she asked quietly as he held the door open for her, Max stomping ahead with his hood pulled over his face and his hands in his pockets.

He frowned, his gaze miles away and his face lined with worry. “The last couple months have been … hard. He was so happy on Halloween, and I thought things were looking up, but …” David sighed, running a gloved hand through his hair and wincing at the way his fringe crackled with static and clung to his forehead. “I just don’t know anymore.”

“Maybe you’re too close to it?” she suggested, and his eyes finally snapped to hers. “I mean, I know he’s a little shit, but he seems a lot better than he was in August. And it’s a hell of an improvement over Thanksgiving, right?”

“I guess so,” he said, shaking his head with a small chuckle. They’d invited Gwen down for the holiday that year, and she’d made the mistake of thinking the two of them and David’s mother would be less hectic than her own family. The evening had ended with Max sulking on the roof after having thrown the entire turkey at David’s head – David’s mom, working with middle schoolers for a living, had been the only one able to eventually coax him in out of the cold – and his legal guardian crying on the living-room floor surrounded by destroyed poultry while Gwen tried to scrub gravy out of the carpet and occasionally brought him napkins. (She wasn’t great at comforting people, and had been immeasurably relieved when the others had returned from the roof, so she could snag Max for cleanup duty and leave the emotional support to David’s mom.) From what she could tell, things had been much smoother since then. “Maybe I’m expecting too much of him.”

“Yeah, probably,” she said with a snort, then cringed at the hurt look on his face. “I mean, he’s … like, no amount of love is going to stop him from being an asshole. That’s kinda how he is. I know you think I’m too hard on him –” she added quickly as he opened his mouth; he obediently shut it and looked down. “– but you can’t explain away his  _entire_ personality with ‘his parents are fuckups,’ David. Some of that is just how he is, and he has to know you’re gonna like him anyway. I mean … right? You know?”

She stuttered to a halt, suddenly aware of how long she’d been talking. Christ, she hadn’t given a speech like that since Nurf’s day back at camp. But that time she’d been asked how to make Nurf open up, instead of just spouting her unwanted opinions at a struggling father.

She opened her mouth to apologize, because David certainly didn’t need  _two_ jerks in his life and it wasn’t like she really knew the situation anyway and they were barely even friends, really – but before she could she was smacked in the face with a blue pom-pom, inhaling wool in the split second before David’s arms tightened around her hard enough to cut off her ability to breathe at all.

“Thank you, Gwen,” he mumbled into her shoulder, his voice muffled by the puffy coat he’d insisted she put on (because hers was apparently not good enough). “You always know what to say.”

That … seemed like a generous interpretation – she would’ve gone with “you always put your foot in your mouth” – but she wasn’t going to complain. Her mobility was limited somewhat by the dense down jacket, but she managed to hook an arm around his skinny frame and awkwardly pat his back. “Hey,” she began, then realized she didn’t know how to finish that and just let it dangle in the air: “Heyyy …”

David laughed quietly, turning his head toward her so he could breathe more easily. “Hi.”

He didn’t let go, and after a couple moments she said, “Max doesn’t hug much, huh?”

“How could you tell?”

She rolled her eyes. “Call it a hunch.” She let him cling like that for another few seconds – she hadn’t been hugged in a while either, and she had to admit it was kinda nice – then shrugged him off. “Come on, moron. He’s probably freezing to death out there.”

His eyes widened in alarm, looking much more teal than green thanks to the blue wool hat that framed his face. “Golly, you’re right! Let’s go!” He snagged her hand without thinking, turning and rushing down the hall with the pom-poms dangling from his hat’s ear-flaps trailing behind him (and nearly hitting her, again, with each step).

“Slow down, David!” she shouted, but the irritation in her voice was entirely fake.

She’d tolerate a lot, she was slowly learning, to keep a smile on that idiot’s face.

* * *

“What kind of tree  _do_ you want, Max?” After almost an hour of trying and failing to get Max to show any sort of enthusiasm, David’s cheer was definitely strained. He kept opening and closing his hands, like he was trying to keep the blood circulating in the cold weather … or like he was trying very very hard not to let them clench into fists.

Max didn’t look up from his phone, deftly bystepping a gooey-eyed couple. “I dunno. Maybe a fake one, so we don’t kill a perfectly healthy tree for no good reason.”

“But …” David trailed off, closing his eyes and opening his mittened hands again. His nostrils flared slightly as he took a deep, calming breath, then said, “Well, buddy, it would’ve been good to know that before we got here! But since we’re already in out here surrounded by all this beautiful nature –” he gestured grandly at the neat rows of trees that spread out like the spokes of a wheel from where they were standing – “why don’t we bring some of it home, what do you say?”

Max just shrugged, smirked at something on his phone, and kept walking. His small boots cut through the powdery snow without really picking up off the ground, leaving two lines that trailed behind him as he wandered through the lot.

David took another deep breath – she was starting to wonder if that was doing him any good – and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I forgot how he gets when we have company,” he finally muttered to Gwen, most of the golly-gee! quality of his voice gone. “It’s like he needs to prove he’s still …”

“Satan?” she offered helpfully.

“ _Difficult_ ,” he finished, and for a moment they watched the mop of black hair weave through the trees. “But it’s okay! We’ll just have to help him.”

“Help him  _what_ –” She was interrupted by a wheeze as he grabbed her hand and tugged her forward, plowing through the snow at a half-jog that sprayed glittering white over everyone they ran past.

“Max,  _Max!_ What about that one?”

“Still don’t care.”

They were getting along better, Gwen thought, watching David attempt to rescue the trailing ends of Max’s scarf and wrap them around their supremely disinterested owner. The tension between them felt brittler, always on the verge of crackling and falling away; when Max told his guardian to go to hell, it lacked the bite of sincerity.

She wouldn’t call their dynamic  _playful_ , and David certainly didn’t seem amused by his attitude, but it was … softer, somehow. Like the malice was a little less genuine, and the underlying affection a little closer to the surface.

Still, that didn’t mean he wasn’t a little shitstain. And she was getting cold.

“David, they’re literally all the exact same, so just pick one and –”

“What about that one?” she interrupted, pointing at a tree at the very corner of the lot. It was thin and brown, a carpet of shed needles lying in a circle around its base. It listed to one side, the tip drooping toward the ground like a sad dog.

David frowned, his eyes narrowing. “Gwen, I don’t think –”

“Trust me,” she hissed, stepping close enough to whisper and taking his elbow. Making sure Max wasn’t looking, she pinched his upper arm for good measure (not that he could feel it through his absurdly thick wool coat).

He frowned, but laid one hand overtop hers, stepping closer to the tree. “Well, it  _does_ have personality,” he began doubtfully. Then something lit up behind his eyes and he beamed. “It’s so unique!”

Max looked up, his eyes widening incredulously as Gwen tugged away from David’s arm and walked around the zombie tree in a large circle. She deliberately ignored him. “It’ll probably be pretty cheap, so maybe we could get a couple of ‘em.”

“What a great idea! Let’s go see if there are any others like this!”

“You’re fucking kidding me, right?”

They both turned to Max, Gwen biting the inside of her cheek to keep her expression neutral. 

“You’re not seriously thinking of bringing that thing into our house, right? It’s probably got termites or something!”

“I don’t think termites are around much in winter –” she began, but Max cut her off with an exasperated scoff.

“Thirty-fucking-thousand trees here, and you had to pick out the worst one!”

David put his hands on his hips, cocking his head to the side and giving Max a stern look. “It’s cost-effective! And every tree deserves a home!”

“Jesus, what is it with you and always wanting shit no one … else does.” His voice dropped and so did his eyes. He scuffed his toe through the fluffy snow, kicking up a mist of sparkles.

David and Gwen’s eyes met, and she nodded with a weak shrug.

They’d found “something.”

“Listen.” Max broke them out of a silence that had crossed into “uncomfortable” territory. He still wasn’t looking at them, his hands shoved in his pockets as he stood on tiptoe and tried to peer around at the entire lot. “If you guys wanna turn our house into the Island of Misfit Trees, whatever, I don’t care. But if Neil and Nikki are coming over, I want one that doesn’t look like it needs somebody to pull the plug. I figured even you guys would be smart enough to pick out a Christmas tree, but apparently none of those useless degrees of Gwen’s were in common sense …” Continuing to mutter to himself, Max began prowling around the lot again, but this time when he pulled out his phone, it was to several pictures of various trees before … well, she wasn’t going to look over his shoulder, but the upward twitch of his lips made her think she was texting his best friends.

They lagged behind, letting him scurry from one tree to another – pausing at a prospect, snapping a photo, and then turning his attention to his phone screen. “Not bad,” she said, bending down to pick up one of Max’s knitted gloves (which he’d tossed in frustration after a few fruitless attempts to take photographs with them on). “He’s involved, at least.”

“That was a good idea, Gwen!” David rocked back on his heels, smiling as he watched Max continue the tree hunt. “Now, can you keep an eye on him while I …”

She glanced over and he was pulling an axe from behind his back; like his ever-handy guitar, she wondered where on earth he’d kept it. “Wait, are you seriously gonna cut down that piece of garbage?”

“The more I think about it, the more I like it! Maybe just one, but …” His voice softened, like he was self-conscious. “I mean, every tree  _does_ deserve a home, right?”

She rolled her eyes, but as he knocked down the tree – it only took one swing of his axe, and the sound was like cracking knuckles; she refused to be impressed – she couldn’t help thinking about what Max had said. “What is it with you and losers, anyway?” He glanced up at her with a puzzled frown, hoisting the dying tree over one shoulder, and she added, “like you just seem to … collect lame shit no one cares about. Like Camp Campbell, and Max and me –”

“Well for starters I’d never call Camp Campbell lame,” David chided. “And neither are you and Max! He’s not a dying tree, he’s … a sapling! He’s full of potential and just needs some guidance and growth!” Looking absurdly proud of this analogy, he followed the twin lines of shuffling footsteps and Max’s loud voice (apparently the tree selection process had progressed beyond texts and he needed real-time feedback).

Gwen hurried to keep up, nearly tripping in the thickening snow. “I think this girl and I have a lot in common,” she teased, gently patting their tree and wincing as a small cascade of dead needles crackled to the ground. “Old, dried-up, practically dead …”

“That’s not fair.”

She snorted. “True. At least someone wants this thing.”

“I’m serious, Gwen.” His voice was earnest, painfully so, and they’d both sort of awkwardly stumbled to a halt as he hooked his axe onto his belt and fumbled for her hand. “You’re green and you don’t even know it.”

It was embarrassing, his sincerity, so she shrugged his hand away and gave him a self-conscious laugh. “Come on, CBFL. Let’s go find your camper.”

* * *

The rest of the evening went smoother. Max, having decided they couldn’t be trusted with any aesthetic decisions, had forced David to house the “ugly tree” in the kitchen and took over decorating the monstrously huge fir he’d picked out. Unfortunately, his height made it difficult to reach more than half of the tree, so he’d constructed a series of shaky towers out of chairs, couch cushions, and wishes. Gwen curled up on the couch with a mug of eggnog, watching him scramble from one platform to another.

David probably wouldn’t be happy that she was letting Max do something so dangerous, but hell, she wasn’t his mother. Besides, she knew enough first and second aid that she could deal with it if the kid split his head open.

Until that happened, she wasn’t planning on moving a muscle.

David came bouncing out of the kitchen, his arms loaded down with food. “I didn’t have much time to prepare something really special, but we have –  _Max!_ That’s dangerous!” (Gwen carefully avoided the glare she could feel being shot at her from his direction. “Why didn’t you ask one of us to lift you?”

“Touch me and die, Camp Man.”

She set her drink on the table and stretched out along the couch.

Once you got used to it, their arguing made a hell of a lullaby.


End file.
